Today, we continue the celebration of Matthew Salesses’ I’M NOT SAYING, I’M JUST SAYING with two new pieces inspired by the cover art from the book.

First, there’s Delaney Nolan’s Buoyed Nets or a Towered Light Spinning, a story of children and parents, of leaving, of home:

“You were a dream of a fish dreaming of ice. I headed West from Maine. I stopped at a gas station and talked to the girl behind the counter who said nobody comes round here, and I leaned over the counter, fingering the softpacks. You were the size of a grain of salt by then. I took my change from the girl in cupped hands and let my fingers draw across hers, lonely like a child, and she snapped her gum and offered instant coffee. Nobody came round there. You were a grain of salt and I took the girl into the gas station bathroom and it was not a bed in a ship in a harbor. I was a sea chanty. I was a stabbed-through gull. Afterwards, I put the down coat on and left her piling her hair, wiping her mouth, waving so long with her free hand, saying goodbye, goodbye.”

The ever-wonderful Amber Sparks brings a poem based on the cover, Our War With the Sky:

“We spent our hours gaping at the sun,
our eyes black holes, secretive and
closed.
We were orbited by loneliness.”

It’s only the 4th and we have so much great work left to bring to you. Happy reading.